Colors of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He left the mirror glass on the table and walked through the archway from the small study into the front sitting room and up to the window, where he opened the shutter. Cold welled off the cloudy panes, intense cold, for all that little snow had fallen upon Elparta in the past eight-day.

  The avenue beyond the front wall and the personal and carriage gates was empty for the moment. Cerryl shivered, though he was not cold, thinking of the lancers who had been disciplined and the villagers who worked for a few coppers-conscripted in effect-on restoring the walls and gates of Elparta. One instant Elparta had been a functioning city on the river, the next a ruin. Why? Because rulers disagreed… because the Guild insisted on existing and because people like Rystryr and Syrma and Estalin wanted golds more than prosperity for their people. And what of Anya and Jeslek? Are they any different, save that they seek power? Or the traders like Jiolt and Muneat?

  Cerryl snorted to himself. “The snare of power is that you think you do it for prosperity for all when it is for your own benefit.”

  “Ser?” asked the lancer standing inside the foyer.

  “Nothing. A mage musing to himself.” As if it mattered, as if you will ever have that kind of power. He shook his head. You’re deceiving yourself. You have power, if not so much as a Jeslek. Still, he was having trouble with the limited power he had. He was trying to rebuild a city and keep order, and the lancers-at least some of them-hated him and the locals hated him because he represented Fairhaven.

  And none of them really even understood Fairhaven. You think that’s surprising? Half the Guild doesn’t.

  Teras stamped inside the front foyer, then closed the carved dark wooden door behind him. “Sorry being so slow, ser.”

  “That’s all right.” Cerryl waited until the big lancer hung his riding jacket on one of the pegs in the foyer, then turned and walked back to the study, sitting at one of the chairs beside the conference table He gestured for Teras to sit down as the captain passed through the archway from the sitting room.

  “Thank you, ser.” Teras kept his eyes on Cerryl as he seated himself carefully, gingerly, as if he feared the chair might break under him.

  “How are the quarters’ houses faring in the cold?”

  “About the same as barracks anywhere. Warmer than outside and colder than most would like, except for those raised in the hills, and they say it’s too hot.” Teras offered a rueful grin.

  Cerryl nodded. “How are they finding the food?”

  Teras shrugged. “They complain, but they know you eat what they eat. That suits them.”

  The captain had not mentioned Fydel, and Cerryl decided against bringing that question up. Fydel was using coins gained somewhere to improve the fare served at his private table, and all the officers knew that.

  “It’s plain,” Cerryl said with a laugh. “I’m trying to get some dried fruit and nuts and more cheese, and coins to buy more eggs from the locals.”

  “You cannot take eggs from a peasant.” Teras laughed.

  Not when you couldn’t even find the chickens, you couldn’t, reflected Cerryl. “Teras? Why do you think we’re here? In Elparta?”

  “That’d not be wise of a captain to guess at the reasons of the High Wizards, ser. Begging your pardon.” A grim smile crossed the hulking lancer’s face, and Cerryl understood, again, why Teras remained a cap-tain and would always remain a captain.

  “I understand.” In turn, Cerryl smiled. “From your viewpoint as a captain of lancers, after the work crews finish repairing the river walls, what should they do next?”

  “Clear all the streets that yet have rubble in them. Let the locals repair dwellings as they wish or choose not to. Then if, as you say, the Guild and the lancers need to maintain a garrison here, we should have the workers build a proper barracks and stables. By the south gate, I would judge.”

  “That may have to wait until after spring. I was charged with having the piers and the river wall repaired first, and work on the wall is slow,” Cerryl answered. “If I accompany the High Wizard in the spring, I will suggest the barracks to him.”

  Teras nodded, as if he expected no more.

  Cerryl almost frowned. Was that the answer? Spread out the members of the Guild so that their presence was accepted and understood- and backed with lancers as necessary? He wanted to laugh. While it might work, who would listen to him? All the powerful mages wanted to be in Fairhaven, where the prestige and the power seemed to lie. Is it that way in all lands?

  He forced his attention back to the lancer captain and on learning what else he needed to know.

  CXIV

  The sound of the gelding’s hoofs was muffled by the span or so of snow that coated the cobblestones of the avenue from the south gate. Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, barely able to see the four lancers acting as his guards through the snow that had begun to fall as he had left the sawmill-snow and cold that helped block off the lingering odors of decay and death and pillaging, snow that gave him a headache, if not one so sharp as from rain.

  Good thing you don’t need too much more in the way of lumber… not until spring, and then there won’t be enough. He hoped he could put off worrying about lumber until spring. He had enough other problems to Worry about-and far sooner.

  Snow kept building up on the collar of his jacket, seemingly faster than he could brush it away, and then melting and oozing down his back. Because you didn’t think to wear a hat.

  One of the next problems was rope. “How could anyone dock a boat or barge without rope?” Jidro had asked. Even the chandlery had none, or so little-fifty cubits’ worth of light line-as to be worthless.

  And then there was the lack of firewood. With no real woodlots within a kay of Elparta and the snow getting deeper, stocks of seasoned wood were nearly gone. Fydel, of course, had merely insisted that it was Cerryl’s job to supply firewood-and everything else.

  One supply barge had arrived from Gallos-surprisingly-but it had carried mainly barrels of flour and some excessively salted pork, and a half-dozen large rounds of cheese. The lancers might not starve, but they would complain, more than usual.

  Cerryl swallowed the exasperation he felt, and his eyes flicked toward the last of the quarters’ houses on his left. Before long - another four hundred cubits or so-they would reach the street that led uphill toward the dwelling serving as his office and headquarters.

  The faintest hint of a taper glimmered through cracks in the shutters of the dwelling ahead on the left-the house used by one of Senglat’s subofficers to house his company. Cerryl frowned, trying to recall the man’s name. No, it was a woman, one of the few subofficers who was. Jrynn, that was it.

  “Ser… ?” The voice was soft, gentle… feminine

  Cerryl turned his head, hesitating momentarily. He sensed not only a figure in the alleyway to his right blurred by the white curtain of snow and the all-too-early gloom of a winter’s eve but also a muted sense of chaos-and another form behind the first.

  Thwunnnggg.

  He threw himself sideways in the saddle even before the sound of the crossbow echoed off the walls and uneven stones of the narrow alleyway, then turned the gelding toward the figure-or figures. One reached for something-another crossbow?

  Cerryl grasped for chaos, fighting the deadening effect of the snow, fighting the twisting in his guts, as the gelding quick-trotted toward the narrow passage between the ruined structures on the eastern side of the avenue.

  Whhssstt! The muted, dampened firebolt seemed to crawl through the white curtain, and Cerryl struggled to gather more chaos, gasping as he did, almost as though he were underwater and fighting his way to the surface of a raging river.

  He summoned more chaos, flinging it as well, silently, through the whiteness that seemed to retard and muffle his efforts.

  Behind him, other mounts followed. “Ser? What is it! Ser?”

  Cerryl reined up, abruptly, as the second figure toppled sideways, feet skidding sideways. Cerryl’s breathing was ragged, and he
felt drained. The kind of effort he had raised should have destroyed an entire dwelling. It had not, only burned away part of the shoulder and chest of the woman who had called and the side of the man’s face and left a charred hole in his chest.

  Cerryl tried to catch his breath. He looked at the two figures, almost sadly.

  Once the woman had been beautiful, the man probably well built. The remnants of a uniform were visible under the ragged brown cloak.

  “Do you recognize him, Buetyr?” Cerryl asked the lancer who had drawn his own mount up beside the gelding.

  “No, ser. Not much left of his face.” The swallow was audible, despite the muffling effect of the snow.

  Cerryl waited, letting his strength rebuild. A friend of one of the troublemakers? The troublemaker who had deserted? A local who had stolen a uniform? What about the woman? Who knows? The only thing certain is that whatever you do will disturb someone.

  “Now what, ser?” asked Buetyr.

  “A moment,” Cerryl said tiredly. “A moment.” The snow sifted down past his collar again, and he shivered. Then he slowly, and gently, channeled more chaos toward the bodies lying on the thin blanket of whiteness.

  Whhhstttttt… The last firebolt drifted across the bodies.

  After the momentary flash of light and heat, white ashes mixed with the falling snow, both drifting in the gentle and cold wind that gusted along the street, sweeping ashes and snowflakes, lifting them, shifting them.

  Cerryl flicked the reins and turned the gelding back toward his quarters, knowing that once more there would be speculations about his harshness and questions about what he had done to merit such an attack. No one wants justice… or fairness… just their own comfort.

  The snow swallowed his deep breath, as it had swallowed much of the chaos he had flung, and buried the ashes of the two he had killed.

  CXV

  Cerryl slipped into the high room that overlooked the river walls, the building that Fydel had declared as his headquarters as soon as Cerryl’s crafters had reinforced and repaired the frame timbers and replaced the shutters and the glass in shattered windows. Cerryl had to admit that the room and the two wide windows did provide a useful view of both the river walls and the southern gate. The middle trading gate was too far north to see.

  The younger mage studied the river walls where the work crew still toiled in the late-afternoon shadows. Small as the crews were, they might be struggling with the stones as the weather permitted until close to spring. Although the past eight-day had been warmer, enough to melt away some of the snow in the midpart of the day, Cerryl could scarcely count on the semithaw lasting much longer.

  “You asked for me to join you.” Cerryl turned toward Fydel, who had remained seated behind a table that had clearly come from some other dwelling, ornate and trimmed with brass as it was.

  The square-bearded wizard studied the unfolded parchment on the table. Beside it lay fragments of blue wax from the seal that had closed it. Beyond him the smoke-smudged stones that might once have been white framed a large hearth in which burned a pile of ample logs. “The Spidlarian Traders’ Council sent a message.”

  Cerryl nodded, waiting, feeling the draft around his trousers, a draft that showed how much his apprentice crafters did not know. Whistling outside the window, the wind still did not drown out the clink of masons’ trowels and stones. The candles in the three-branched candelabra flickered with the gusts that found their way around the ill-fitting window.

  Fydel stood and walked to the cloudy glass of the window. Below, the conscripted village troublemakers and the lancer disciplinary cases toiled with the stones of the walls, slowly dragging them back into position for the masons. Dark clouds overhead promised more snow or possibly freezing rain, but neither yet fell.

  Finally, Cerryl, hunched in a heavy white wool cloak that Hiser had presented him from somewhere, spoke. “What are they offering?”

  “Just about everything to save their necks,” laughed Fydel. “They’ll turn over any of the ‘unfaithful’; effectively disband the guards by reducing them to a handful of squads; open the roads to our traders.”

  “Why aren’t you taking their offer?” asked Cerryl.

  “You assume too much.”

  Cerryl laughed softly. “I’m assuming nothing. You won’t take the Spidlarian Council’s offer. I’d just like to know why.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Why hand it to Jeslek? He’s back in Fairhaven, enjoying fires, good food, and a few other pleasures.” A wide grin revealed large white teeth. “Who knows? We might get a better offer before spring.”

  “We won’t. What you’re hoping is that Jeslek will have to face some mighty Black. Like this Brede? Or that the smith Dorrin will turn out to be greater than Jeslek thinks.” Or that I’ll make more mistakes. “That won’t happen.”

  “It could. The smith has produced some nasty weapons.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “No.” Fydel smiled. “But there’s no reason to make it easy for Jeslek, is there? No real reason to hand him an easy victory after he’s muddled through a year of doing nothing, is there?”

  “What about the levies? Why kill them off unnecessarily?”

  “You’re too soft, Cerryl. What are a few hundred peasants one way or the other? Especially peasants from Hydlen and Gallos.”

  Cerryl shook his head but said nothing.

  “Here. Read it. Tell me if I’m wrong.” Fydel reached down and picked up the scroll and handed it to the more slender White mage. After Cerryl took it and began to read, Fydel reseated himself at the table with his right side to the hearth.

  The sunlight dimmed, and the room seemed to cool immediately as the first of the gray and white clouds from the north passed before the sun.

  Fydel looked up only when Cerryl set the scroll back on the table before the older mage. “Is it not as I said?”

  “It is.” Cerryl frowned.

  “You seem disturbed.”

  “Concerned. Concerned.” Cerryl stepped closer to the hearth, but not to Fydel. “The traders do not sound like men who have fought off another land for a year. They do not write as men who have mages and war leaders from Recluce fighting for them.”

  “Perhaps the Black Isle has abandoned them. Recluce has done that before.”

  “The smith remains in Diev, and he forges strange things out of black iron. I’ve seen that in the glass.” Cerryl turned. “Have you not told me that your patrols are still attacked, if by small numbers of blue lancers?”

  “We’ve lost but a half-score since the turn of the year. Nothing.”

  The younger mage shrugged. “Nothing, but the tactics remain as they were, and that would suggest that their Black warleader remains here in Spidlar.”

  “What are you saying, Cerryl?”

  “Nothing.” Cerryl shook his head. “Perhaps you should take their terms. Or make a counteroffer.”

  “And let Jeslek… ? No.”

  “Then send him the terms. Ask for his advice.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “So that you don’t give him another excuse to get angry at you.”

  Fydel pursed his lips, then fingered his beard. “Perhaps I should, although it may take some time for their message to reach the High Wizard. The Easthorns are closed, except for the Great White Highway through Gallos, and it will take eight-days for a messenger to reach there.”

  “As you see fit.” Cerryl nodded. “Might I be of other service?”

  “Only if you can get the walls completely repaired, so that we don’t need so many patrols and sentries.”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Good.”

  I will talk to you later.“ Cerryl stepped away from the hearth and nodded to Fydel before departing. As he walked down the stairs and out into the chill where the gelding was tied, the wind whistled and the sound of stonework echoed through the window. Behind him, in the high room above, the candles flickered in the late afternoon. />
  CXVI

  The bright first yellow-orange light reflected off the newly dropped snow, through the slits at the side of the shutters and into the sitting room, and then into the study-cascading across the glass and disrupt-ing Cerryl’s concentration.

  He blinked twice, then rubbed his forehead, letting the mists in the screeing glass dissipate. He looked straight down but saw only his own reflection-thin brown hair, narrow chin, straight nose, gray eyes with faint circles beneath them-his own image and the image of the dark-beamed ceiling above.

  For the fourth day… he could not find Leyladin in his glass. There might be many reasons. She could be in a place where the glass was blocked, like on a ship or traveling a large river or somewhere amid hills filled with order and iron, or she could be shielding herself, as Cerryl could do if he worked at it. There were reasons, but her continued absence bothered him.

  He walked to the sitting room window and closed the front shutters-slightly ajar-all the way. Ignoring the lancer guards in the front foyer and the chill that held the room, he returned to the polished wooden table and the blank glass. Was he losing his ability to seek out Blacks? Had he used chaos too much, careful as he had tried to be?

  He concentrated once more.

  The silver mists swirled, then dissipated to reveal the redheaded smith of Diev, tongs in hand, sliding a chunk of highly ordered iron from the forge onto an anvil. A striker stood in the background, extending a hammer to the smith.

  A puzzled look appeared on Dorrin’s face, and Cerryl let the image lapse. Like Leyladin, the Black could sense a glass seeking his image.

  But where was Cerryl’s blonde healer? Careful… she’s not yours. She’s not anyone’s.

  He took a deep breath. Maybe tomorrow.